


Scenes From a Cargo Bay

by merrin



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Everybody Lives, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29885748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrin/pseuds/merrin
Summary: A friendship unfolds.
Relationships: Female Shepard & James Vega
Comments: 24
Kudos: 29





	Scenes From a Cargo Bay

The first time Shepard comes down to the cargo bay, she still has soot streaked across her face. Sweat and maybe a few tears cut thin lines through the gritty gray. She attacks the clasps of her armor with hands that James can see shaking from behind his stack of crates. Piece by piece, it gets thrown on the table in the corner. 

He drops a box of ammo, just so she hears it. He doesn’t think it would be that easy to sneak up on the great Commander Shepard, but it still seems polite. She doesn’t startle, but then, he knew she wouldn’t. 

“Kaidan’s going to be fine,” she says when she’s done with the armor. Just a white t-shirt and her thermal pants underneath, indents from the armor still visible on both. She leans over the table, arms spread wide and stiff. Spots of sweat make the shirt stick on her back in odd shapes. 

The only words they’ve exchanged since leaving Earth were right there, right where she’s standing, when he yelled at her to go back, to fight the Reapers, to make a difference. But he’d been thinking small, even though he was thinking of the whole Earth. Like any good marine, he solves the problems in front of him, often with enormous guns. It’s different for Shepard, he knows it is. 

After Mars, it still isn’t different for him, but he doesn’t resent her. Not for leaving Earth, anyway. 

He wonders suddenly if it’s weird for her, him being on the ship, a reminder of her time in that small room on Earth, held captive because of the terrible decisions this war keeps forcing her to make. He wonders if he’d have had the _cojones_ to blow up a relay. 

He decides to give her some privacy. He can hear Cortez muttering in the kodiak, probably elbow deep in the control panel trying to fix what James had done trying to keep that creepy android from making off with the intel. At least this time he hadn’t had to choose between the intel and his team. He shakes off that line of thinking. Cortez can probably use another set of hands. 

When he comes back out, a new burn on his wrist from a fucking live current, thanks Cortez, the packs of heat sinks he’d left on the table are lined up, numbers checked off on his list. 

\--

James wipes at the blood dripping off his lip, split where Shepard got him good. Can’t blame her though, he’d invited her to dance. He still can’t quite believe she’d said yes, or that she’d gotten him talking about Captain Toni and the complete shitshow that entire mission had been. He looks over to where she is now, perched on top of a crate of mines, counting out that explosive ammo Garrus likes. 

_Mierda_ , the goddamn Archangel. And that asari they’d brought off Mars is apparently the Shadowbroker now and had been since around the time Shepard came back from the dead. James was trying to figure out how to ask about either of those stories without sounding too impressed.

Not to mention he ended up eating in the mess across the table from the Primarch of the turians last night. If his tio could see him now, he’d lose it. Praying to Santa María and all the saints lose it. 

“What?” Shepard asks. She’s looking over at him, he realizes. He shakes his head. “Nothing, Lola,” he says, still testing the nickname. He thinks it’s a good one. 

“Chakwas could patch that up for you,” she says, pointing at her own lip. 

“It’s fine.” 

He almost expects her to apologize, and tells himself he’ll try not to think less of her for it. She doesn’t. He goes back to stacking boxes of grenades, a small smile tugging at the sting on his lip. 

\--

James has always liked salarians, as a whole. He hasn’t met many, even fewer that have wanted to carry on a conversation with a grunt, but the ones that do talk to him have always been good for a laugh, most of the time at their expense. He can’t help it; their voices are funny. 

James’ drill sergeant back at Pendleton had always said to really know a person, you have to fight alongside them. James believed that to be true, which meant he’d made about fifty new salarian best friends today. Kirrahe had even given him a prototype of the Scorpion pistol he’d used against the Cerberus troops, along with a stirring speech about standing firm against the darkness that James wishes he’d thought to record with his omnitool for a recruitment vid. 

Galaxy big as this one, and it still seems that everywhere they go they run into people Shepard has helped, fought with, or had on her crew.

Case in point, he’d started talking to that reporter, Emily Wong, on the Citadel. After he’d told her he was assigned to the Normandy, it just figures that she couldn’t stop talking about Shepard or how she’d helped Emily with some stories three years ago. She’d just sent him a message, asking him for ideas, and because she’s hot James was inclined to help her. Kirrahe’s speech would have been a great one. 

He turns at the sound of the lift descending. They’re in deep space so he knows he’s not gonna need to suit back up. Still, plenty of not-fun reasons someone could be heading down to the cargo bay. But it’s just Shepard. 

“And please, Traynor, for the love of everything don’t tell anyone where I am for at least a few hours. I’m cutting my channel, I don’t want to be bothered until we hit the relay.” 

“Trouble?” James asks as she drops onto her accustomed crate of mines. 

“Wrex is mad about the salarians. Again,” she says. “Which I completely understand, except that this particular salarian,” she waves vaguely upwards in the direction of the medbay, “is only trying to help.” 

“I thought he was gonna get killed before we even landed,” James says. 

Shepard stops sorting through frag grenades for a minute. “What a nightmare that would have been. He’s the only thing keeping those clans working together right now. We lose Wrex, we lose the krogan.” 

“We lose the krogan, we lose the turians too. And all the meat.” 

“Alliances are delicate things.” 

“Kinda like frag grenades,” he says, pointing at the ones in her hands. “Handle them carefully or they go boom.” 

She laughs, just a delicate, quiet little laugh, but James is struck. She was a legend before James ever met her: the first human spectre, hero of the Citadel, risen from the dead, first to go through the Omega 4 relay and return with her entire crew intact. He’d given himself the luxury of hating her for that, for a while, but it had ultimately been a useless feeling. They’d done a lot of living since he came on board. He’s seen her angry, he’s seen her sad, he’s seen her curse bitterly, crouched behind a bulkhead while suppressing fire whizzes past her head. But he’s only just realized he’s never seen her laugh.

It lights up her face and James sees the person she might have been, if not for the Reapers and the weight of the entire galaxy. For a moment, his brain turns off the “commanding officer” filter he’s firmly fixed over her and she’s just a pretty girl, laughing at a terrible joke. 

It’s a fleeting moment and then she’s all business again with the grenades, but it’s a moment James holds on to. 

\--

James has moved everything away from her except the spare thermal clips. Sure, a gun helps ammo do what ammo does, but James isn’t 100% sure how her biotics might affect a case of incendiary ammo in her condition. There’s a faint glow about her as she stalks around his corner of the cargo bay, practically vibrating with rage. 

James has never been one to not poke a hornet’s nest. 

“That was some shit, Lola,” he says. 

She hurls the thermal clip in her hand, hard enough that it could have caused damage if she’d let it impact, but she catches it with her biotics before it hits the bulkhead. She cradles her head in her hands, rubbing at all the pressure points they teach biotic kids dealing with implant headaches. The lowgrade buzz she’s got going must be getting to her. James isn’t sensitive to biotics but even he can feel the gravity well shift around her.

“Grunt gonna be okay?” 

“As far as I can tell, krogans are made of stubbornness and duct tape. He didn’t even lose a redundant organ.” 

“So this is about the rachni queen? I read that report, you freed her before.” 

“I did, and she just ended up right back where she started.” Shepard dropped onto the crate she’d been hurling around. “You know how sometimes you have that feeling that nothing you do ever matters, and then you get proof of it?”

“You know I do.” 

Shepard has the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “Shit.” 

“Yeah.”

James wishes his training had come with pithy comments to make when the world falls apart. After Fehl Prime, the only good advice he’d received was to not compare himself to Shepard, but that’s less than helpful here. 

Kaidan is fluent in Shepard, always knows just what to say to light her up again. Jack would just flip everyone the bird and tell them all to fuck off, which is more James’s style. But that’s not Shepard’s way. 

“You remember that part in _Blasto Saves Christmas_ —” 

She doesn’t say anything, but she gives him a look. 

“Go with me here. Blasto’s speeder was out of Christmas cheer— 

“You know that movie is a blatant rip off of a classic film.” 

“No one cares. Anyway. He’d done everything he could. Tried to reconnect with his father, tried to help out Santa, nothing worked.” 

“I hope you aren’t suggesting we sing at the reapers.” 

“I’m just saying, I don’t think anyone’s tried it.” 

Shepard looks at him like he’s crazy which is a damn sight better than looking like she’s going to punch a hole through the floor with her brain. James counts it a win. 

\--

James would not have expected a hold full of Elcor to be so quiet. Most of the elcor stayed on the ships they were escorting, but they’d had a number of requests to board the Normandy that James couldn’t step into the hold without having to skirt around a big gray alien body. Most of them claimed to be an ambassador but James is pretty sure there aren’t that many ambassadors in the entire race. He’d thought he’d hear a lot of “with regret: I seem to have stepped on your foot” and “with sincerity: it is okay,” but according to Garrus they only need to do that when they’re talking to humans. 

Shepard is among them now, talking with one that James guesses is in charge of the others. That one sounds like the Elcor that James is used to. The rest of them? It’s a riot of scents and a lot of quiet snuffles and ticks of their faces and the faintest thrum of a sound that makes his teeth ache. 

“Sincere apology: Hadyn has not been among other species in several years.” 

James wonders what the offending Hadyn did, but Shepard seems unbothered. “It’s not a problem. Hold tight and we’ll have you to Alliance space in no time.” 

It takes them three days at sublight to get back to the system with the conduit. James has conversations with various Elcor that he has a hard time telling apart. He wonders if they have a hard time telling humans apart, but they always greet him by name, so probably not. Shepard gives each of them a solo tour of the ship, because that’s all the Elcor that can safely maneuver in the lift at a time. 

She drops by James’s station when they’ve all cleared out and the ship is theirs again. 

“So how bad was that?”

“With sincerity,” James starts in a monotone, and laughs when Lola launches a pen at him. 

\----

They’ve been on this ship together for months now, and James likes to think he knows Lola better than anyone else that came on after the invasion of Earth. He wonders if even Kaidan has ever seen her like this. 

Her biotics have never really scared him before, and he’s watched her rip people apart from the inside in combat. He doesn’t know how to describe what’s happening right now, but if Javik came down and identified that Lola was making a black hole in the cargo bay, James would believe him. 

She’s pacing at the end of the bay, right next to the hatch, and absolutely nothing about her seems to really be under control right now. 

He should probably get Kaidan, but James figures if she’d wanted Kaidan, he would already be here, or she’d be where he is, or something like that. 

It’s not a mystery to him, why she’s pissed. Thessia is the biggest loss they’ve suffered so far, and that includes losing all of Palaven. The little AI drone, Vendetta, had seemed really important, and losing it along with the planet had been devastating. No one has seen Liara since they got back but if she’s anything like Lola, James is worried they’re going to have to deal with two holes punched into the hull. 

There’s no chance in this galaxy that James wants to be the one to approach her, but someone has to. 

He walks closer, slowly. He sees her clock his location, so he’s at least confident she’s not going to flare out at him accidentally. He stops at his workstation, leaning against the railing separating the shuttle from the rest of the bay and just waits. 

It takes a while. James is calculating rounds in storage in his head for fun when she finally stops pacing in front of him. 

“I just—” 

“I know, Lola.” 

“I don’t know what to do next.” 

“We solve the next problem.” 

Her corona flairs again, a well of gravity that pulls him toward her. “The next problem is the goddamn reapers.” 

“No, Lola, it isn’t.” 

“The fuck is it then?” 

“We follow the intel. Traynor tracked him to Horizon.” 

“The Sanctuary facility.” 

“Yeah. Also, you should probably check on Liara.” 

“Shit.” 

She starts to stalk away and then abruptly stops and comes back. He isn’t ready for the hug, because that’s not the kind of friends they are normally. But she hugs him and he hugs her back and then she stalks over the lift and the cargo bay is his again. 

\----

Shallow breaths. Every movement feels like fire in his veins. He only makes it to the Normandy because Liara drags him. All those fucking brutes and banshees and the thing that got him, that’s taking him out of the fight, was an actual goddamn reaper. Or, the tank the reaper threw at him anyway. It’s a special kind of agonizing, to get so close to the conduit and have to be evaced. James still doesn’t understand how the Normandy made it in and out without falling victim to the Reaper that got him and the crew. Well, mostly him. 

He collapses on the lip of the ramp, hoping that when Joker takes off with all of them, he can just roll down the ramp as it closes. 

Then he hears Kaidan talking, sounding like a goodbye, and it seems like Shepard was the only one of them not caught in the blast, and he realizes she isn’t getting on the ramp with them, and things go a little fuzzy. Maybe it’s an adrenaline rush, maybe it’s just sheer rage at being left behind, but he tries to roll off the ramp anyway. Slap some medigel on the gaping wound in his gut and he should be good to prop up against a wall and shoot some bad guys. 

It’s a good plan, he thinks, but Garrus catches him with a foot right in the gut, and then James doesn’t remember anything. 

\--

The first time James goes back into the cargo bay after . . . everything, he’s already in a bad mood before he steps off the lift. 

The clean up efforts in the Citadel were still ongoing, after the mess the Reapers and the Crucible had left behind. James wonders sometimes if it wouldn’t make more sense to close it up and set it adrift instead, make it a floating memorial to all those that had died, but no one asks him his opinion. He was dropped off there on Hackett’s request while the Normandy was docked for repairs and told to help, so that’s what he did.

He figures he’s mostly there for the muscle, but he notices the same thing he noticed back in Purgatory, when he’d conned Shepard into buying the marines a round. There’s a deference in the way everyone treats him, the fact that he isn’t just another one of the clean up crew, that he finds clean shirts outside of his bunk every other morning or so, when supplies are hard to come by and he’s used to making do. He regularly ends up with extra servings at chow, and finds a bottle of slightly questionable but decently alcoholic contraband hooch stashed under his pillow. 

He hadn’t realized that somewhere along the way, Shepard’s legend had grown to include him too. 

James still hasn’t seen Shepard, though he knows she’d survived, barely. _Madre de Dios_ , somehow she’d survived all of that. Commander Bailey, it turned out, had cheated death yet again, holing up in a shop off the Presidium with a small group of other survivors. He’d found Shepard after the blast that had killed all of the Reapers, and it’s widely believed he’s the only reason she survived at all. She helped him find Anderson, who’d been set adrift amongst the stars per the request they’d found in his files. Kahlee Sanders, safe from the carnage on the Citadel only because she’d been off station shuffling around some recruits, gives a eulogy that James tries really hard not to cry at.

Shepard they’d taken to Earth, because even though it had been under siege by Reapers for the better part of the last six months, it at least still had the personnel available to staff a hospital, which the Citadel didn’t anymore. The best of any doctor still available was on hand to save the hero of the galaxy.

James had gotten into the most depressing of grooves, cleaning up blast zones and body parts and repairing hull breaches. But apparently the Normandy crew wasn’t ever going to be done being the famous Normandy crew, even without Shepard’s command, and Hackett had called them all back for a diplomatic peacekeeping mission to the still rebuilding Palaven. He doesn’t have anyone to say goodbye to on the clean up crew, no one he got close to, but he gets a few claps on the back as he heads to the shuttle that will take him back to the Normandy. He reports to Kaidan, stows his shit in his old bunk, and heads to the lift before Joker even gets them out of dock.

His bad mood is an accumulation of all of it, and he feels like he’s been carrying its weight for decades. Time seems to slow for the miserable, but hopefully being back in his armory, among all those shiny grenades, on his ship with the other normal, everyday people touched by Shepard’s glory, will help mellow his mood. Son of a bitch, they’d won, hadn’t they? If nothing else the knowledge that the Reapers won’t be breathing down their neck anymore or ever again should have been good enough. 

He steps off the lift in the cargo bay and nods at Cortez, who is already elbow deep in the busted Kodiak he’d crashed back on Earth. Cortez smiles at him, way wider than is warranted under the circumstances, James thinks. He’s about to say something when Cortez jerks his head over at James’ side of the bay.

James looks over and sees her and it’s like that time the air recycler in his shuttle gave out midway through a mission and he’d gotten high on too much nitrogen. Shepard’s here, sitting on her crate of mines in the armory, and James can’t think of a single thing to say except her name. 

“Lola?” he yells across the bay. Her face has the pale green cast of recently healed bruising and when she looks up, already smiling, James can see a shiny new scar across her forehead. She holds herself carefully but she still launches herself across the bay at him. He’s probably lucky she didn’t actually use her biotics to charge him, but it almost feels like she did. 

Her arms are tight around his neck and he laughs as he swings her up off her feet and around in a dizzy circle. “Fuck,” he says, after he finally puts her back on her feet. “You greet everyone with that enthusiasm?” 

“I can confirm,” Cortez calls from under the bulkhead of the Kodiak. “I’ve got the soldering singe to prove it.” 

“I apologized for that!” Shepard yells.

“And I accepted, I just want James to know he’s not that special,” Cortez says.

But he is, and he knows it. He’s got roughly a million questions and random observations to share, he still wants to yell at her for making them leave her at the conduit, he wants to tell her, to her face, how much it means to him that she’s still alive. He can’t do a bit of it right now though, he can’t stop smiling, and she smiles back, and that’s all he can manage but it’s totally okay. 

He lets her lead the way back over to the armory where she settles back on her crate and he stands back at his table. She picks up the cryo rounds she’d dropped when she saw him, and he opens a box of grenades. 

And together, they count.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to swaps55 for being my cheerleader in all things. This story was born out of my overwhelming love for James Vega and I hope at least some of that comes across.


End file.
